Edmund de Waal: if we attend

24th October 2015

24 October 2015 – 21 February 2016Pallant House Gallery is delighted to present a new installation by Edmund de Waal (b. 1964) that will be on display alongside the exhibition David Jones: Vision and Memory. The work, entitled if we attend (2015), has been produced especially for the David Jones exhibition and has never before been exhibited.

British artist Edmund de Waal encountered the art and poetry of David Jones at Kettle’s Yard while studying English at the University of Cambridge. When he later started working with porcelain, it was Jones’ work that profoundly influenced his approach to making. If we attend is a white, wall-mounted vitrine with translucent glazing containing 16 porcelain vessels that references the second line in Jones’ poem The Anathemata: ‘We already and first of all discern him making this thing other. His groping syntax, if we attend, already shapes…’ For de Waal, this signifies a moment of slowing down and calm, which resonates with the work he has created.

The work will be displayed alongside two other porcelain works – in the north north east (2014) and thirteen circles (2014) – and accompanied by a series of poems by David Jones, creating a contemplative space reflecting the nature of the work. The display will coincide with the release of Edmund de Waal’s new book The White Road, published by Chatto & Windus, which launches this autumn.

Simon Martin, Artistic Director at Pallant House Gallery says: ‘It is fantastic to be able to show works by such a renowned international artist here at Pallant House Gallery once again. This specially created work responds to the work of David Jones, showing the artist’s continued relevance today to artists and makers.’

The works are on loan from the artist and the New Art Centre, Salisbury. The installation will tour with the David Jones: Vision and Memory exhibition to the Djanogly Gallery in Nottingham from 12 March – 5 June 2016.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

About Edmund de Waal

Edmund de Waal was born in 1964. He studied English at Cambridge University and ceramics in both England and Japan. He is best known for his large-scale installations, which have been exhibited in museums including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Fitzwilliam Museum, Waddesdon Manor, Tate Britain and the National Museum of Wales. His work comes out of a dialogue between minimalism, architecture and music, and is informed by his passion for literature. In 2011 he was awarded an OBE for his services to art.

About David Jones: Vision and Memory

Pallant House Gallery will present an exhibition of the work of David Jones (1895 – 1974) this autumn from 24 October 2015 to 21 February 2016. Jones had strong links to Sussex and is renowned for the wholly original work that he created across numerous disciplines throughout his life. A draughtsman, engraver, painter and maker of inscriptions, as well as a modernist poet revered by peers such as T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, David Jones was named by Kenneth Clark as ‘the most gifted of all the young British painters’ and ‘absolutely unique – a remarkable genius’. The exhibition at Pallant House, the Gallery’s major autumn show, will trace recurring themes in Jones’ work, emphasising his great achievements as an engraver and watercolourist between 1926 and 1932, as well as the finest of his later mythologies. A concurrent exhibition at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft (24 October 2015 – 6 March 2016) will take as its focus Jones’ fascination with animals, which he depicted throughout his career.

About Pallant House Gallery

Located in the heart of historic Chichester on the south coast, Pallant House Gallery is a unique combination of a Grade One listed Queen-Anne townhouse and an award-winning contemporary extension, housing one of the most significant collections of Modern British art in the country. Widely acclaimed for its innovative temporary exhibitions and exemplary Learning and Community programme which has inclusion at its heart, the Gallery has won numerous awards since re-opening in 2006.